Amid few voices of dissent within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the lethargic state of opposition platforms is the main reason why a second term mandate for President Bola Tinubu has become foreseeable. However, in this report, SEYE OLUMIDE and ANN GODWIN throw up certain factors that will impact the winning votes in Southwest and South-South regions.
Ordinarily, the Southwest geopolitical zone should be the ready vote vault for President Tinubu and the APC. But, two years into his first term, things are still fuzzy in terms of likely voter preference and acceptance.
But for the ongoing crisis rocking the Lagos State House of Assembly, nobody will think that APC and all party faithful are not a united political family under one father. This chicken fight with the Lagos Assembly has been described by observers as a disturbing and infuriating development in the eyes of the Lagos electorate.
Accusing fingers are being trained against the President and his wife, Senator Oluremi. Tinubu and the first lady are said to be the forces propelling the ousted Speaker, Mudashiru Obasa. How far this infraction and cracks in what has been Tinubu’s backyard would affect his re-election in 2027 is beyond conjecture.
Although Tinubu lost to the Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi, in Lagos in the February 25, 2023, presidential election by a margin of 582,454 to 572,606 votes, the ruling APC rallied support and stamped its authority in the subsequent gubernatorial poll on March 18. APC and the incumbent governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, polled 762,134 votes to beat Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of LP, who scored 312,329 votes, while JideAdediran (Jandor) of the PDP, returned 62,449 votes to place third.
Perhaps, having survived the scare, the ruling APC descended on the opposition, ensuring that they lacked any further breathing space in Lagos. Regrettably, the frontline opposition parties become engulfed in internal crises. These crises have continued to weaken the Lagos State chapters of LP and PDP to the point that both parties have become a shadow of their former robust statues.
This dour picture has inspired some observers to conclude that even if President Tinubu is no longer popular in Lagos, there is no opposition to take advantage of the situation in the coming 2027 general polls.
However, a chieftain of Lagos PDP, Dr. Olatokunbo Pearse, said he hopes the PDP will be able to resolve its challenges at the national level and settle down to address the issues affecting most of the states.
He noted that there is no way the party can talk of repositioning Lagos PDP for 2027 polls without the National leadership resolving its challenges. But, for now, the ruling APC and the incumbent might possibly rest on their oars that it controls the three senatorial districts, majority seats in the House of Representatives and Assembly, as well as, holding sway in all the 20 local governments and 35 LCDAs and with the fact that it has firm grip of the traditional institutions, which is the custodian of grassroots politics in the state.
Within the last two years, the ruling party has even adopted a strategy of intimidation to reduce the chances of non-indigenes to influence the outcome of the election in the state. Those who are not its supporters, especially the South easterners, who allegedly voted en masse for Obi in the last general elections.
With the benefit of doubts, one of the leaders of the Governor Advisory Council of APC, BasorunOlorunfunmi, said no opposition party has shown any capacity or is willing to muster any capacity to dust President Tinubu in the state, come 2027.
IN Ogun State, the possibility of Tinubu losing to any opposition party is also dicey, if not impossible in 2027. Except the voting masses of the state rise in revolt, the major opposition PDP is abysmally weak and uncoordinated at present and it is most likely not going to recover until 2027.
Just as the crisis dogging PDP at the national level is dragging its chapter in Lagos, the Ogun chapter is not immune to the same problem. Although, the PDP gubernatorial candidate, Ladi Adebutu, pulled a surprise in 2023, majority of the members of the party, who were together then had since defected to APC thereafter in protest against the alleged dominance of the party structure by Adebutu.
Ogun APC may have its internal crisis, there is nothing to show that the party’s stakeholders will operate at variance like the PDP to the extent of losing the state to opposition in 2027.
In that regard, President Tinubu may still have his way in Ogun come 2027. For Ondo and Ekiti, Mr President and the ruling party can as well go to sleep since both states are currently controlled by APC and both governors BioduOyebanji (Ekiti) and Lucky Aiyedatiwa (Ondo) will not be participating in the 2027 polls. The two governors will ensure the states are delivered to Mr. President under no circumstances.
Especially in Ekiti, where all the forces of PDP and other opposition like Ayo Fayose, a leader in PDP and Segun Oni, who contested the last governorship poll on the platform of Social Democratic Party (SDP) are now sympathetic with President Tinubu.
Added to whatever advantage President Tinubu may lash on in Ondo and Ekiti come 2027 is that all the political structures in both states are currently under the firm control of APC.
Meanwhile, the situation remains dicey in Osun until the outcome of the 2026 governorship election. At present the ruling Osun PDP is in firm control of all political structures in Osun State and with the influence and popularity of Governor Ademola Adeleke, it might take more work and efforts for President Tinubu’s re-election agenda to be achieved in the state come 2027.
In Oyo State, President Tinubu may possibly not have much problem except the PDP picks its presidential flag bearer from Southwest in 2027.
How Tinubu, APC divide opposition parties ahead of 2027
IN the Niger Delta zone, residents and analysts are deeply concerned ahead of 2027 general elections, especially over how the incumbent President is using political machinery to destabilise opposition parties in each of the states.
This has left several people wondering if there is possibly going to be any strong opposition against President Tinubu across the South-South region in the next general election. This is even worse when each of the governors and political leadership from the zone are beginning to show more interest in their personal political survival than in the general interest of the region.
Critical political analysts from the region said Nigeria is in dire need of true leaders with humane hearts and with people-friendly policies and programmes that can usher Nigerians out of pain. They lamented that the economic woes across the country under the current administration is becoming unbearable.
However, they doubted if there may be any strong opposition to rescue Nigerians from the misery ahead of the 2027 elections.Speaking on this, a lecturer at the Department of Political science, University of Port Harcourt, DrObinnaWordi, said the ruling party APC has adopted a strategy of frustrating and weakening opposition parties in the country.
Citing the case of the Labour Party Presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, Peter Obi, DrWordi, pointed out that the frustrations meted out on Obi was a huge discouraging factor to any politicians who intend to rise against Tinubu. Wordi said: “I do not see any opposition party in Nigeria at the moment, the only opposition we would’ve seen was that of Peter Obi, under the Labour Party but we saw the frustrations that are being melted out to him and that is a discouraging factor.”
“It is a strategy to weaken any opposition and that is why we see party conflicts. What is happening in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP is a deliberate move to strangle PDP so that the party will be completely dead.
“It all started with APC passing a vote of confidence on Tinubu thereby, shutting out every other person who may be dreaming of running on the APC ahead of the 2027 Presidential race. There’s nobody that will attempt to fight with Tinubu in opposition. Other parties are being strangled to be too weak to fight the APC in 2027″.
Wordi stated: “Exception is when the people deploy the strategy of Northern and Southern factor by saying, “they are not benefitting anything in this (Tinubu) government,”. But Wordi expressed fears that going by the nature of Nigeria politicians having zero integrity, as soon ‘they get what they want or Tinubu makes an offer’, he (Tinubu) will still work his way to 2027.
Also speaking, a Policy and Political analyst, Olalekan Ige, said, there is ongoing alignment and realignment among Nigeria politicians, stating that anything can happen even in a minute to 2027 elections.
Ige stated: “It is not happening for the first time for a central government to begin to attract people into their fold, PDP ruled Nigeria from 1999 to 2015, there was the notion that opposition may just fizzle out but eventually. In 2015, we had people who came together and for the first time defeated the ruling party.
“Considering the people decamping to APC, one may say, it will be difficult to conquer Tinubu in 2027, but then, you never can tell what will happen in the next one minute. And, that one minute can change a whole lot of things. It is not easy to defeat an incumbent President, but the battle is still on, there may be a coalition among the opposition that can come up and change things in a swiftest time.”
